Should Students Be Taught With or Without an IDE?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Saturday May 20, 2006 @03:50PM from the why-the-zero-sum dept.

bblazer asks: "Beginning this next school year, there is a strong possibility I will be teaching an intro to Java and an intro to Python course at the local community college. I was wondering what the prevailing wisdom is when it comes to teaching languages - should students be taught with or without an IDE? I am a bit old school and wouldn't mind having them all use vi or emacs, but using a good IDE does have some advantages as well. I should note that the students I will be teaching will have had at least 1 semester of programming in VB or C++." Even though there is limited time in a semester, could a curriculum be constructed to accommodate both methods?

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Re:I would say IDEs by Anonymous Coward · 2006-05-20 18:05 · Score: 5, Funny

Exactly. I've been developing software for 12 years and I still go back to emacs whenever I want to learn a new technique, technology, or toolkit. The dev work may take a little bit longer, but I learn so much more when I have to search through directories or look up an interface in the documentation that you just don't get with an IDE.

Whenever I'm trying to learn something new I get out the hard drive and move the bits around myself. IDEs like emacs just get in the way.